Right Beside You
by skeptic skeleton
Summary: Brady reflects on his fear of his girlfriend's stupidity, and Mack's there to calm him down.


**Hey ya'll, I'm back with another Brack one-shot like I promised.**

**Nightmare fics are kind of my thing. Always have been, probably always will be. And I thought that it would be cool to experiment that with Mack and Brady.**

**This happened late at night, so it may suck, or it may not. We'll see how it goes.**

**And this is written in present tense. I'm not good at transitioning between that and past tense from my other stories, so sorry for errors. I need to work on editing.**

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"Brady…?"

He fists the sheets, his head vigorously shaking from side to side. The roar of the angry waves; the shouts of devastated people; his heart shattering in his chest, erupting into a million shards; why can't this stop?

"Com'n wake up."

His eyes squeeze shut even tighter, if that's even possible at this point. Why won't he wake up? He needs to wake up. He needs to get away.

"Brady!"

He bolts us, panting, cheeks flushed and skin sweaty as his hair stick to the skin of his forehead and neck. He freaks for a moment, his legs tangled in the sheets that weren't the ones on his bed, and his eyes darts around a room that wasn't his.

"Brady?" A gentle hand lays itself on his shoulder. Mack—he feels her concerned gaze before he turns to her and suddenly buries his face in her hair.

Mack lets out a sudden gasp of surprise, but quickly recovers and adjusts herself so that Brady's top half was almost in her lap. She angles her arms that she can slowly run her fingers through his damp hair, mopping his bangs off his sticky forehead.

Neither of them attempts to say anything—Mack just lets him pant heavily into the crook of her neck, almost crying but not at the same time. Brady wraps his arms around her midsection; his body is close to shaking.

Finally, after turning his face up to hers and running her free hand over his cheeks, Mack simply asks, "do you want to talk about it?"

Brady slowly untangles himself, maneuvering to lie beside her as his face lightens but the tips of his ears turn a light tint of red. Reaching up, he brushes loose strands from her eyes as Mack looks down at him patiently.

"You let me, Mack," Brady whispers softly, moving his head onto her lap. He buries his face in the cottony feel of her pajama shorts. "You were dead."

Mack blinks, looking down at him surprised. She has no idea where this has come from, and doesn't really know what to say. Instead of trying and showing her uneasiness of the topic, she continues running her hand through his hair.

"You were dead," he repeats, hiding his face even deeper in her shorts, "you died in that stupid wave, Mack, and left me here."

The realization dawns of her, slowing her hand until it is simply resting on the back of his neck. His skin still feels warm and flushed against the cool palm of her hand.

"Hey, hey, hey," she whispers to him soothingly, "I'm right here, and not going anywhere." Her fingers give a few comforting strokes to the curls on the back of his neck.

Brady nuzzles against her legs. For a while they sit there in the silence of Mack's bedroom, shadows and patches of moonlight projecting on the walls. Mack starts up with trailing her fingers up and down his spine, moving the fabric of his sticky, damp shirt underneath her light fingertips.

"I had a dream like that," Mack recalls softly, making Brady look up at her with inquisitive eyes. "I was in the car with my mom. We were singing and it was pouring—the car came out of nowhere.

"Suddenly I was on the outside watching her die." Mack chokes, feeling her throat tighten and eyes beginning to sting.

Brady picks himself up, Mack's arms and hands falling to her lap. He gentle cups her face, bringing his thumbs up to wipe at the falling tears.

Leaning in, he lets his lips land on her slightly wet ones.

Neither Mack or Brady is good with comforting people, or just handling pain in general—at least, none of the emotional kind. If one of them is to, for example, wipe out on their boards, a slight ache or shock of pain from a sprain or concussion is something they dealt with on a weekly basis.

But nightmares, with deaths and inner turmoil? Not exactly their area of specialty.

Instead of trying comforting words, they press their mouths even tighter against one another, putting everything they couldn't say into the kiss.

When they pull away, Mack's eyes are dry, Brady's face is normal, and their chests are heaving very quickly.

After looking into each other's eyes, they settle down, Mack tucking herself into his side. Brady wraps an arm around her back and let it hang loosely around her waist, keeping her to him.

Tilting her head slightly, she kisses his shoulder, tasting the saltiness of his sweaty skin and the fabric of his tank top.

"Was there blood?" she asks.

Brady freezes, hesitating before shaking head. "No, but you…you were just gone."

Mack nods, drawing circles into the part of his stomach that is exposed from his risen shirt. "My mom's head was squashed in," she murmurs quietly, eyes slipping closed. "Lots of blood and glass. And I just stood there."

Brady can relate, and very much so as he recalls that horrible dream. While in reality he gone out to save her, therefore taking them to Wet Side Story in that freak storm, in his dream his feet were stuck in the sand, the grains making him sink and locking his ankles in place, keeping him moving.

He could hear the screams of people telling her to come in; maybe one of them being his own. And he could see the jet ski sitting by, waiting for him to take action.

But he couldn't. Brady was stuck to watch Mack, like a pinprick against the massive wall of waves, be chewed and swallowed by the harsh waters, the storm whisking her under, and keeping her there.

His heart aches at just thinking about it.

Shuddering, Brady pulls Mack closer.

Mack knows how it feels to lose somebody close to her. Now, thanks to those horrific images made up by her subconscious, Brady can guess what it would feel like in real life.

And he hates it.

Kissing her head, Brady closes his eyes and drifts off, listening to the sound of her heartbeat and softly lapping waves, harmless on the shore.

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**And there it ends.**

**I was thinking about doing a real life fic.**

**Okay, tell me this in your review: Should I do a one-shot about Maia and Ross meeting? I was listening to an interview and their first interaction sounded fascinating enough to write about it.**

**And I will, if even people ask for it.**

**Please review, and tell me what you think, thank you :)**

**And this whole thing was written while listening to Lovebug by Jonas Brothers, fun fact right there.**


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